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by thecryoftheseagulls



Series: Logan Hawke [13]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Coming Out, Diplomatic Hawke, Domestic Fluff, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Drama, Grey-Aro Hawke, Grief/Mourning, Hawke is 24 and Anders is 32, Hawke is a Giant Nerd, Holidays, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Character Death, Rating and tags to be updated as we go, Thedas is now a MUD based on Dragon Age books okay just bear with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5643235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan Hawke is a bouncer, an entrepreneur, and a generally awkward person, despite his reputation as a smooth-talker (thanks Varric). He spends most of his free time fanboying over the Dragon Age books and roleplaying on Thedas MUD. And he is definitely, absolutely, 100% not in love with his rl friend and rp partner Anders. Nope.</p><p>He is, however, very gay, and when he lets Varric talk him into finally coming out to his family when he goes home for Christmas, he somehow manages to wrangle Anders into being his fake boyfriend. For moral support. Because coming out is stressful. Not because he's in love with his friend. </p><p>Definitely not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was originally about a quarter of this length, and then I decided to add in Thedas MUD, and, well, this happened. Please, please tell me if any of the stuff about the MUD, a text-based rpg, is confusing, and I will endeavor to explain better.
> 
> also, if anyone is curious what Logan looks like, [here](http://thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com/post/136162778779/thecryoftheseagulls-all-right-squints-im) is a drawing I did of canon Logan , and [here](http://thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com/post/110967183659/jesse-williams-as-fancast-for-my-logan-hawke-yy) are a bunch of pictures of my faceclaim for him. Also a [mood board](http://thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com/post/136551093674/thecryoftheseagulls-so-about-that-handers-fake) that I did for this fic.

Logan Hawke, at twenty-four years old, was definitely an adult. He even felt like one _most_ of the time, which he told himself was an added side-benefit of leaving home at seventeen and living on his own for…about half a decade, if you discounted the two years when he moved back when his dad got sick. 

But talking to his mother never failed to make him feel like a child again. He sighed as he disconnected her call, tossing his phone onto the end table beside him with a grimace and then settling his laptop back in his lap from where he’d left it on the arm rest of the couch.

His pose was still the last thing on the screen.

> **OOC Lounge**  
>  **#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#**  
>  Couches and armchairs are spread out throughout this room, lending the whole a cozy atmosphere for players to spend time out of character. A **map** of Thedas hangs on one wall, next to a shelf with commemorative busts of some of the more famous heroes of the Dragon Age. Inquisition banners are spaced evenly with the sigils of the Grey Wardens. In one corner, someone has hastily erected a haphazard-looking Christmas tree. It looks as though it might fall over at any time, but lends the room a festive air nonetheless.  
>  **#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#/*\\#**  
>  **Contents** : **Tethras** , **Garrett** , and Map of Thedas.  
>  To return to Thedas, type **GoBACK**
> 
> **Tethras** says, “hey garret!”  
>  **Garret** says, “hey”  
>  **Garrett** says, “phone call, brb”

Logan reached for the glass of water beside him and typed one-handed, somewhat awkwardly.

> **Garrett** says, “ughhhh”  
>  **Tethras** says, “wb”  
>  **Tethras** says, “what’s up”

Logan set his glass down again and nudged his phone further back from the edge of the table, where it had landed haphazardly. He pushed his reading glasses up his nose and typed:

> **Garrett** says, “so that was my mother”  
>  **Tethras** says, “and how is Leandra?”  
>  **Garrett** says, “she wants to know when i’m coming home for christmas”  
>  **Garrett** sighs dramatically  
>  **Tethras** says, “you know one of the perks of living in a different city means you don’t have to go home for the holidays if you don’t want to”  
>  **Garrett** gives you an incredulous look  
>  **Garrett** says, “have you met my mother?”  
>  **Garrett** says, “don’t answer that, i know you have”  
>  **Garrett** says, “which means you know exactly why that is a terrible idea”  
>  **Garrett** says, “that would just invite an entire year’s worth of hurt feelings and guilt-tripping phone calls into my life”

He waited a moment, and then Varric’s response appeared.

> **Tethras** concedes the point

Logan flattened his lips in a thin line and debated the merits of discussing the real issue here while Varric was at work, or waiting until he came home to their shared apartment in a couple of hours.

> **Garrett** says, “how’s work”  
>  **Tethras** says, “merchant’s union won’t get off my back, as usual, and bartrand’s records are a fucking mess. but otherwise great! :p”  
>  **Garrett** says, “when are you coming home?”  
>  **Tethras** says, “aw, Gare, I didn’t know you were so interested in my comings and goings”  
>  **Garrett** says, “u are my business partner and my roommate, Varric”  
>  **Garrett** says, “im hurt you would think i don’t care”  
>  **Tethras** says, “lol. This is still about Leandra, isn’t it?”  
>  **Tethras** says, “I’m taking off early tonight because I have a killer headache. and if I hang around any longer my mother’s going to show up and want to talk about Bartrand, and I definitely can’t deal with that today.”  
>  **Tethras** says, “so I should be there in half an hour or so”  
>  **Garrett** says, “okay”  
>  **Garrett** says, “i’m gonna go find something for dinner since nobody’s around for rp. see you soon.”

Logan left Garrett logged in and idling in the OOC Lounge, and went to putter around in the kitchen to distract himself from his mom’s closing question.

“So, any chance you might bring a special somebody home with you this year?” Leandra had asked, pointedly cheerful. There was almost certainly a hidden agenda behind the question.

“No, Mom,” Logan had said, as he always did. “I’m not dating anybody.”

His mother had made sympathetic noises and said something about how she worried about him being alone in the city with nobody to come home to. Logan had rolled his eyes, because he wasn’t alone – there was Varric, and he had quite a few friends. Not least of whom was _Anders_ , though his mom did not need to know that. Varric was his best friend, but Anders was…Anders was… Logan was really bad about expressing everything Anders was, even to himself.

A little over two years ago, he’d still been in Lothering, and while his dad’s cancer had gone into remission (and, thankfully, not made a reappearance since), Logan hadn’t bothered to move back off the farm. Mostly because of Rowan, and then…after Rowan…he’d still stayed, because suddenly the idea of moving out and being _alone_ , again, was totally overwhelming, even if living under his parent’s roof after so long on his own and being back in that tiny shithole of a town was terrible.

He’d had a hard time admitting how depressed he was at the time until Varric, someone he’d been friends with for years thanks to the rpg they played together, Thedas MUD, had pointed it out. It was Varric who had urged him to get out of Lothering again, and Varric who had convinced him to come to Kirkwall with the promise of rooming together. Also Varric who had introduced him to his current circle of friends, a lot of whom happened to also mud with them. Ironic, perhaps, that they should all be in one place - Logan wasn’t sure if Varric had lured them all to his city, or what, but he strongly suspected that might be the case. Isabela had basically said as much, and Varric played one of the wizards who helped keep the game running smoothly, so he kind of knew everyone.

They were all huge fans of the Dragon Age books, and the game itself was set in the decade between book one, _Origins_ , and book two, _Inquisition_. To avoid any accusations of plagiarism, they’d picked an era mostly glossed over in canon, centered around a figure only barely referenced in the books, the unnamed and oft-disparaged Champion of Emerius. That was who Logan played, the character he’d named Garrett, a sarcastic primal mage who was a lot wittier than Logan himself.

Anders played Arnmóður, who in canon was just called The Apostate and only mentioned for blowing up some religious buildings in Emerius a couple of years after where they were in game. He was blamed by some fans for starting the Mage-Templar War which was in full force when Inquisition started, though Logan and most of his friends had strong opinions about it being much more complicated than that.

Everyone called Anders’ character Blondie thanks to Varric, because it was just easier. Except Logan, who called him Arn. Because Logan was in love with him. Or, rather, Garrett was.

It was all very muddled in his head these days.

It hadn’t been a direction he’d been planning to take his character originally, because though the Apostate and the Champion canonically knew each other, there wasn’t really anything to suggest they’d even been friends, let alone lovers. Some people said the Champion had probably killed the Apostate for what he did in 9:37 Dragon, because the Apostate wasn’t ever mentioned again in the books. But Logan had built Garrett from scratch, with only a couple of details like the names of his family members and his status as a refugee in Emerius after the Fifth Blight to guide him (the refugee angle was actually what had drawn him to the character in the first place), and Garrett had quickly taken on a life of his own.

Specifically, when Logan and Anders had roleplayed Arn and Garrett’s first meeting, it was immediately clear that Garrett – brash, incorrigible, headstrong Garrett – was going to insist on falling in love with Anders’ revolutionary mage healer. And Logan had very little say in the matter.

Logan tried to pretend it was Garrett’s feelings for Arn that made his feelings for Anders so intense. At first, when Varric had said that Arn’s player lived in Kirkwall too, and that he wanted to introduce them, Logan had had wild daydreams about the two of them having this immediate connection that turned into long makeout sessions in between talks about mage rights, and, eventually maybe even a real life relationship. Practically, of course, he wasn’t anywhere near as bold as Garrett was, and since Anders had never shown any sign that he liked Logan like that (despite Logan’s undeniably terrible attempts at flirting), it had never gone anywhere. And wouldn’t, ever, Logan was fully aware.

The only problem was, Logan was on the aromantic scale, what he’d settled on calling grey-aro, and there had only been two guys in his entire life that he’d been romantically interested in, so just…letting go of his feelings was easier said than done. Or rather, actually impossible.

Meanwhile, Anders continued to be his second best friend, the first person he thought about in the mornings, and the last person he thought about at night, and his mother continued to be over-invested in his lack of a love life.

“Honey, I’m home!” Varric called as he let himself in the front door, the joke more half-hearted than usual. Maelstrom, Logan’s Great Pyrenees and god-only-knew-what-else gray mutt of a rescue dog, let out a single deep woof of welcome.

Logan looked down at the stove and realized he’d made his dad’s biscuits and gravy and tossed a salad on autopilot, too busy worrying about Anders and his mother to notice what he was doing. And the table was set. And there was a – was that… he checked the stove. Yes, an apple pie in the oven.

“Um,” he said. It had definitely been longer than half an hour.

“Shit, Hawke,” Varric said, coming into the kitchen and surveying the damage. “You haven’t stress-cooked in ages. What the hell happened?”

“Um,” Logan said again, trying to gather his thoughts, no longer certain he actually wanted to talk about this. Varric looked like shit, large dark circles under his eyes and a slump to his shoulders. “You’re later than you said you would be,” Logan said instead. “You okay?”

Varric sighed and sank into a chair at the table, rubbing his face as Logan pulled the gravy off the stove and the pie out of the oven to cool.

“I did not, in fact, manage to avoid my mother,” Varric said. Logan winced. “It turns out…” Varric stood again, grabbing a bottle of Corff’s - his favorite brand of particularly nasty cheap ale – from the fridge. “The doctors think Bartrand is going to have to stay longer, because he’s not making any progress.”

Logan dished some food onto Varric’s plate and sat down across from him.

“I’m sorry, Varric,” he said. “I know your mom was hoping he could come home.”

Varric’s elder brother, previously the one who managed all of Varric’s family’s substantial assets. had been hospitalized for schizophrenia months ago now, when he’d started having hallucinations of voices and singing, and become increasingly paranoid. Varric had stepped up to take over the ‘family business’ (and Logan still didn’t know what all that entailed, but he suspected not all of it was entirely legal), and his mother, in particular, had been crushed. They had hoped he would be released to in-home care eventually (because they were the type of family who could afford all kinds of private medical care), but that kept getting pushed back.

“Yeah,” Varric said quietly, picking at the label on his bottle. “Not much to be done about it, though.”

Logan nodded, dishing his own plate. Varric sighed and set his ale aside, getting up again to get some aspirin and a glass of water instead.

“But enough of my problems,” Varric said. “Don't think I didn’t notice how you changed the subject, Hawke. What’s going on with you?”

Logan slumped in his chair and poked at his gravy morosely. Varric was too observant for his own good.

“She wants to know if I’m bringing anybody home for Christmas.”

“And?” Varric took a bite of his own dinner.

“And, I told her no, of course. So when I show up alone and still single, she’s gonna try and foist me off on one of her friends’ daughters. _Again_. She probably started calling them all as soon as she got off the phone with me. ‘Now, Logan’s a nice boy, and I just know he’d like to meet your Cheryl, why don’t the two of you stop by while he’s in town?’” His impression of Leandra Hawke was alarmingly good, not for the fact that he could actually mimic her voice but because the words were exactly ones she might have said.

“I’ve said it before and I will say it again. If you told her you were gay, that would stop,” Varric said.

“I _know_ ,” Logan said. “I just…keep putting it off. And anyways, it might stop the matchmaking for this year, but not for long, and then it would probably be ‘So have you met any nice boys yet?’ I mean, assuming she doesn’t freak out and disown me. Which is unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility.”

“Leandra Hawke is not going to disown her favorite son for being gay,” Varric rolled his eyes.

“Probably not,” Logan muttered. “Still doesn’t mean I want to do it. And around Christmas? That would be terrible. I’d be the one dragging drama into the family reunion, and ruining everyone’s holidays.”

Varric gave him an unsympathetic stare. “Seems awfully convenient to me. You’ll have the family all in one place, and can get it all over with at once.”

Logan groaned.

“I don’t see why you’re still putting it off, Hawke. You don’t live at home anymore. They can’t _do_ anything to you. And even if it goes badly, you’ve got people here who’ll have your back. The only thing left to lose is all the lies you’re still telling your family.”

Logan knew he was right, but he had never been very good at…well, staying. He’d run away rather than stick around for his last year of high school and face the possibility of his family finding out he was gay. When things with Rowan had gone bad, instead of fixing them, which he probably could have done by coming out, he’d run away again at Varric’s suggestion. He’d just spent so goddamned long running that the idea of turning and telling his family the truth was just…it was just terrifying.

Varric’s expression softened. “Hawke, you don’t owe it to them to tell them. I just think you would be happier if you did. You’re not particularly good at keeping secrets, despite how long you’ve been keeping this one.”

Logan gave him a watery smile and rubbed at his eyes. “Why do you always have to be so logical and smart and, and _right_. Why do you have to be right all the time?”

“I am generally acknowledged to be pretty wise, it’s true,” Varric grinned.

“I don’t _wanna_.” Logan set his fork down with a petulant sigh, and Varric’s grin widened.

“At this point, you’re just reaching for more and more incredibly lame reasons not to, buddy.”

“You are my meanest friend,” Logan groaned.

“You know you love me for it.”

Logan ran his fingers through his unruly mop of black curls and glared half-heartedly.

“Anyways, coming out doesn’t solve the main problem, Varric. She’s still gonna wanna know why I’m single, and if I’m lonely, and if I’m taking care of myself right all alone up here.”

“Well, that’s moms for you,” Varric said pragmatically, going back to his plate.

Logan sighed mournfully. Gay and out or gay and closeted, questions about his love life ate at him, because whenever they came up, all he could think about was Anders. And when it came to actually explaining that? There was no way he was going to admit, ‘Yeah, I’m in love with a man I can’t have, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to fall in love with anyone else ever again, so you know, if you could just stop asking about it permanently, that would be great.’

He pushed thoughts of Anders to their semi-permanent place at the back of his brain.

“You sure you don’t wanna tag along and pretend to be my boyfriend so that I don’t have to deal with it?” he asked, only half-joking.

Varric snorted. “Hawke, there’s no way she would buy that the two of us are dating.”

“You’re probably right…” Their friendship wasn’t exactly a secret, and Varric had met his parents several times. Logan slouched back in his chair and attempted to resign himself to the inevitability of uncomfortable questions about his love life in approximately two weeks.

“You could ask Anders though,” Varric said, giving him a calculating sort of look.

“Hm? Ask Anders what?”

“To pretend to be your boyfriend for a few days. If you’re really _that_ desperate to not have to deal with your mom’s matchmaking. I bet Anders would say yes if you asked him.”

Logan gaped at him, everything in his head going silent and then screaming all at once, though he wasn’t sure if it was in terror or enthusiasm. There was an uncomfortable sinking feeling in his stomach, and his palms were abruptly sweaty. He swiped them over his pants and gave a delayed laugh that was much too loud.

“What? That’s ridiculous. I was…I was just joking, Varric.”

“I’m just saying,” Varric shrugged. “Now, you can’t say I didn’t try to help – I have offered two perfectly good ways to keep the annual Leandra inquisition at bay. I expect to hear no more complaining about how there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Logan had just enough presence of mind to stick out his tongue, and no more, and then thankfully Varric changed the subject.

\----------

Logan had definitely meant it as a joke when he had proposed Varric as his fake boyfriend, because it was a totally absurd idea, but after he went to bed that night, the idea of just..asking Anders to pretend to be in a relationship with him for a few days wouldn’t leave his head. He stared up at the ceiling and ran his fingers along the edge of his comforter restlessly. If he took Anders with him, he wouldn’t have to be alone to come out. The whole thing would just be…so much easier. No more questions about why he wasn’t with anyone, obvious evidence of his gayness in the form of a boyfriend…extra time to spend just with Anders…There were, obviously, a lot of pros to this idea.

And it would be his only chance to have anything resembling a relationship with Anders, which was depressing, but undeniably true. Logan didn’t think he could have possibly made his interest in Anders more clear than he had over the last couple of years, not without stepping over this line he had in his head and actually pushing the other man into something he clearly didn’t want. He had spent practically every free moment with Anders since they’d been introduced – he made a point of bringing Anders coffee on his break at the clinic at least once or twice a week, he dropped by and hung out whenever he possibly could. They roleplayed all the time, which was…kind of a separate thing, but still qualified as spending time together, for Logan. Logan was pretty damn sure he was the least subtle person alive when it came to his affection for Anders, because how could anyone possibly _be_ subtle when everything about Anders was _right there_ and wonderful?

Fine, Logan was in love with him. He liked to deny it, but he’d mostly admitted it to himself a long time ago. But if Anders wasn’t interested, Logan wasn’t going to push. He wouldn’t risk losing him like that. He couldn’t.

He rolled over onto his side and met Maelstrom’s brown eyes from where his dog lay in the corner on his own bed.

“This is a terrible idea,” he muttered.

He was going to ask Anders to be his fake boyfriend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few technical notes before we get started, since this chapter features a little bit of actual rping between Logan and Anders. For anyone looking for a more broad definition of what a MUD is, I recommend [the wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD). I've also included Logan explaining the MUD how I've sort of attempted to explain them to other people before, for Kalenmarc who mentioned some confusion from the last chapter.
> 
> Some of the phrases you'll see in this chapter are IC and OOC, which stand for in character and out of character respectively. I think those are fairly intuitive. The thing to know about them is there are both IC and OOC interactions in game - you can say something ICly, which is called a pose, or posing, as in: _**Garrett** looks at Rivaini_ (usually created by typing 'pose looks at Rivaini' which is why it's called posing). You can also say something OOCly, so for instance if Logan wants to ask for clarification or comment as himself, the player, on the roleplay, he would type 'ooc What does that mean?' which would show up as _**OOC:** Garrett says, "What does that mean?"_ This is to keep IC actions and OOC conversations separate, which can be important in moving the roleplay along.
> 
> You'll see Logan and Anders referring to themselves as their characters and referring to their characters as separate from themselves almost simultaneously, which is something I've noticed myself and other people who MUD do fairly regularly, so I hope it doesn't seem overly confusing here. As with writing and creating any character, your characters in a MUD tend to take on personalities of their own and almost seem to act of their own volition even if you, as the player, are ultimately in charge of everything they're doing. You both are and are not your character, if that makes sense.

Anders unlocked his front door and found the lights in his living room already turned on. He could hear water boiling somewhere, and his apartment smelled strongly of garlic. _Hawke_ , he thought warmly, shaking his head slightly as he tugged the scarf from around his neck and shrugged off his coat, hanging both on the hooks behind the door. Hawke’s big black peacoat was already there.

His kitchen was a fantastic smelling disaster. Jars of spices clustered on the island countertop next to a dirty cutting board that looked like it had been used to chop everything from fresh herbs to onions and garlic, and there was an empty package of hamburger next to a carton of eggs. On the stove, spaghetti noodles boiled and Hawke himself leaned over a pot of sauce, stirring idly. Logan lifted the wooden spoon to his mouth and then made a face, turning to grope for the chili powder among the spices behind him, and finally catching sight of Anders as he did so.

His smile was blinding.

“Hey, you’re home,” he said, and the simple happiness in his voice felt like someone had reached inside Anders’ chest and taken hold of his heart and _squeezed_. 

Anders raised an eyebrow.

“Hawke,” he said, with some exasperation, “We talked about the cooking thing.”

Logan at least had the good grace to look embarrassed, his cheeks going dark as his fingers twitched on the spoon in his hand until he finally set it aside.

“I know, I know, you didn’t give me a key because you wanted me to be your personal chef,” Logan said, parroting Anders’ own past words back at him. “I just, I have the night off, and we’re supposed to roleplay, and you don’t – you don’t eat enough, Anders. You don’t.” His blue eyes were pleading, but there was a quirk to his raised eyebrows that always preceded his being stubborn about something, and Anders knew he was beaten.

“Spaghetti?” he asked, shifting around Logan to take up the spoon he’d abandoned and stir the sauce.

“And meatballs,” Logan said, indicating the oven. He stepped back half a step and watched with some apprehension as Anders lifted the spoon to his mouth.

Anders tasted the sauce and moaned, shooting Logan a look. “All right, you can keep the key,” he said, not that the threat had been anything but idle in the first place. “This is – holy shit, Logan.”

“Yeah?” Logan gave a tiny, relieved smile and took the spoon back. “It’s not quite right, though.” He sprinkled a little more of the chili powder he’d grabbed into the pot and stirred.

“Anything I can do?” Anders asked, watching Logan tinker, trying to put off thinking about the familiar ache the sight woke in him. 

“Nah, everything’s almost done,” Logan said. “I…wanted it to be ready when you got home.”

Anders sighed, wrapped his arms around Logan’s waist from behind and set his chin on Logan’s broad shoulder. 

“What am I going to do with you, sweetheart?” he murmured.

Logan leaned back in his arms, just enough for Anders to feel the solid warmth of him. It was rather like hugging a solid brick wall, and Anders could have easily been bowled off his feet had Logan not clearly been holding himself back. The thought was enough to send a small shock of pleasure up Anders’ spine – it was not often, with his height, that he felt _small_. 

“Just let me spoil you once in a while, okay?” Logan said softly. “I – I know it’s a bit much, but I…want to.”

“Okay,” Anders agreed, equally quiet. _Anything_ , he wanted to say. _Anything you want_. But he knew he’d forfeited the right to say that kind of thing to Logan a long time ago.

“Okay,” Logan repeated, like they’d settled something bigger than whether or not Anders was going to make a fuss out of Logan pampering him. 

Maybe they had. Anders had come home to find Logan in his apartment, and he hadn’t been surprised, and he hadn’t been upset, not really. He’d been…amused, even pleased.

He had thought Hawke’s name first when he saw the lights on, not Karl’s.

“Oh,” Anders said aloud, stepping back, his hand going to his mouth.

“Anders?” Logan turned to him, blue eyes bright with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Anders shook his head mutely, not sure he could quantify his emotions in the moment even to Logan. Panic, shock. Less guilt than he would have thought. 

“I’m – going to – go get changed, get freshened up,” Anders said, not quite meeting Logan’s gaze, and hurried to his bedroom.

He slumped back against the door as soon as he’d closed it, dragging a trembling hand down his face. 

It wasn’t that this was a surprise. It had been six _years_ since Karl’s death, and Anders had been wary about Logan, at first, but even that had been two years ago, and now – now it seemed like Logan was all Anders thought about. The deep timbre of his laugh. Those big brown shoulders. The freckles across his cheeks that Anders wanted to map with his mouth. 

Logan didn’t have the faintest idea what just his _smile_ did to him, let alone how weak-kneed Anders got every time Logan showed up and insisted on taking care of him, cooking for him, nagging at him to look after himself, as if that kind of attention was just something he showered on anyone he happened to call a friend. But this was Hawke, and that was the kind of thing he did for any of his friends - letting himself into their apartment and making them dinner just because he wanted to. He was – god, he was too much, too _good_ , and Anders had seen what the world had to throw at good, kind people like Logan – like Karl – and the idea that anyone, ever, might hurt Logan scared Anders shitless. 

When Varric had introduced them, Anders had been shocked at how young Logan was, a wide-eyed twenty-two year-old, all awkward smiles and incredible gentleness for someone who looked like he could probably bench press a car. It was the age Anders had been when Karl had slipped a ring on his finger, and Anders remembered what that was like, when he’d felt like the world was at his feet and nothing about his and Karl’s shitty childhoods could keep them from happiness. But Logan, at twenty-two, had been this sad kid wrested away from his demanding family by Varric, just trying to get his feet back under him, and Anders had been a broken down widower eight years his senior, still grieving the loss of his husband. Anders had adamantly resisted encouraging the obvious infatuation Logan had nursed for him, and that had worked to a point. A point at which Logan’s mothering had ceased to be at all flirtatious and instead had become just routine, just friendship, and somewhere along in there Anders had lost his heart to the man anyways, no matter what he told himself about how much Logan deserved better. 

It was so goddamned tragic it was hilarious, really. 

Internet friends meet in real life, one is smitten, the other unsure, until the first one has moved on and the second one has finally admitted he fucking can’t resist, if only to himself.

Anders was an asshole to even think about wanting Logan now, after all he’d done to keep him at bay in the past.

“Anders?” There was a knock on the door that rattled into Anders’ back, and then Logan’s voice, hesitant, “Dinner’s ready when you are.”

“Out in a sec, Hawke!” Anders called, and his voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

“’kay,” Logan said, but it was a moment before Anders heard his footsteps moving away again.

Anders stripped, leaving his scrubs in a pile on the floor and changing into loose sweatpants and an old hoodie. Logan’s old hoodie, actually, a gift from his mother with Lothering High School’s ogre on the front, which Logan never wore on principle and which, consequently Anders had nicked a long time ago and failed to give back.

“You wanna roleplay while we eat or wait till after?” he called, opening his bedroom door and going into the bathroom to let his hair down and toss his hair tie in the bowl on the counter.

“Doesn’t matter,” Logan called back. Then, a moment later, “Well, depends how much spaghetti sauce you think you can avoid getting on your keyboard, cause I sure as hell’ll get it everywhere.”

Anders laughed as he came back into the kitchen and slid into the seat beside Logan. 

“No laptops at the table, then,” he conceded, grinning.

Logan gave him a look he couldn’t read, almost a stare, and then his gaze softened.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, offering Anders the spoon to dish himself and then twirling some spaghetti onto a fork from his already full plate.

“Yeah, hon, I’m okay. Just…kind of a long day at the clinic,” Anders lied.

“We don’t have to roleplay tonight if you’re too tired,” Logan offered, watching him. “I know you’ve gotta go in in the morning.”

“Now what kind of gratitude would that be?” Anders asked, gesturing at their meal with his fork, a small smirk on his face.

“I – I didn’t – this wasn’t supposed to be bribery, Anders!” Logan said with more consternation than Anders expected. He flushed darkly and Anders frowned.

“Hey. I know. That was a joke. I do wanna roleplay tonight. You said you wanted a debrief after that roleplay with the new guy.”

“Vael,” Logan said automatically, looking down at his plate.

“Yeah.” Anders watched him move his meatballs around. “Are you sure _you’re_ okay, Hawke?”

Logan looked startled. 

“Um.” He sucked in a breath. “Yeah, I was just – just thinking about something Varric said. It’s nothing.”

Anders paused, waiting to see if Logan would elaborate, but when he didn’t, he shrugged. 

“Okay.”

There was a silence filled only with the sound of their chewing, the clink of silverware against plates, and Sam Smith playing from Logan’s iPod plugged into Anders’ stereo. 

“That was an…intense roleplay,” Logan said with a sigh, making a face.

“With Vael? Yeah, I read it.” Anders wrinkled his nose. 

Most of the players posted the logs of their roleplays to personal blogs, so that they would all be in one place for future reference and so that other players could read them if they wanted. And since pretty much everyone on the MUD was nosy for in-game gossip at all times, they were very popular. Logan’s log blog, thechampionofemerius, was on WordPress, and Anders read it whenever he updated. Half the roleplays or more were ones he participated in, but Anders still liked to review the ones in which Arn wasn’t present.

Their newest player was a guy named Sebastian who was a regular at The Hanged Man, the bar where Logan worked, and whom Logan had somehow persuaded into trying Thedas MUD. Which was a feat in and of itself – new players were a rarity. The backstory Sebastian had come up with for his character was that he was an archer prince named Vael from Emerius’s sister city. It was, Anders had thought privately, a perfectly absurd background – Garrett was a refugee turned mercenary, basically, and Arn was a runaway mage, and their motley crew of friends in game consisted of an escaped elven slave called Leto, an elven blood mage called Daisy, a pirate who just went by her country of origin, Rivaini, a guardswoman called Hendyr – they were, while not exactly _normal_ , very ordinary characters. Everyday folks. Not fucking princes with tragic backstories about their entire families being wiped out, and whose personalities were defined as ‘set on revenge’ and ‘devout’ (and weren’t those kind of mutually exclusive, anyways, what with the Maker’s views on murder?).

It was a grandiose background, which was typical for someone new to the game – newbies often wanted special characters and they seemed to always want a tragic past. But as staff, Varric had approved the backstory as something that fit well enough within their interpretation of canon, so the only thing left for Anders to do was mock it with Isabela (who played Rivaini). Logan was too sweet for that, and since he was responsible for getting Sebastian into the game in the first place, he’d made it his mission for Garrett to take Vael under his wing. 

In this particular roleplay, Vael had asked for help on his quest to avenge his family, and Garrett had agreed, which had led to an investigation of some Emerius noble family and to a nasty fight with a resident desire demon in the basement. Intense wasn’t the word Anders would have used, more ‘straining credulity’ (hundreds if not thousands of dead bodies underneath the family’s manor? That was a bit much, even for a city as whacked as Emerius). But Anders had been working and hadn’t been there for the roleplay himself, and if Logan wanted their characters to chat about what had happened, Anders was definitely on board.

“Garrett was pretty shaken up by some of the things the desire demon said, at the end there,” Logan said. “I think his most IC reaction would be to go talk to Arn about it.”

“Yeah,” Anders said. “Arn would want to hear about it, so that’s good.”

The silence this time was more comfortable, and Anders thought about Sebastian again. He hadn’t met the guy in person, though Isabela (who also worked at The Hanged Man) said he was very good-looking, with blue eyes that were nearly as pretty as Logan’s and a deep Starkhaven brogue. 

Anders doubted anyone could have eyes as beautiful as Logan’s.

He also wondered if his slight animosity towards the man was because Logan seemed to like him, both in game and without.

“How did you get Sebastian into it, anyways?” Anders asked. “It’s been forever since I tried to talk to anyone about the MUD who didn’t already play.”

“He overheard me and Isabela talking about it one day and was curious,” Logan said. He looked amused. “I didn’t actually expect him to want to _play_ when I explained it to him.”

“What did you say?” Anders asked, remembering the last time he’d tried to describe the MUD to a coworker after letting it slip that he played once, when asked about his plans for a weekend. There had been a lot of squinting in that conversation. “I never know how to explain it to people.”

Logan laughed. “Yeah, me neither, honestly. I said it was a text-based RPG based on the Dragon Age books - like an MMO kind of, except without graphics. I said…shit, I don’t know, something about how there’s a lot more creative freedom than an MMO because you can write your characters doing pretty much whatever you want, instead of following a bunch of predetermined commands. And how our game was mostly collaborative storytelling, with an emphasis on the roleplay. You develop your character and know how they might react to stuff, but there’s always an element of surprise because you don’t necessarily know what anybody else’s character is going to do in a given situation. That was the gist - Isabela might have added something else, I don’t remember.” Logan split the last of his meatball in two with his fork and shrugged. “It wasn’t like he took much persuasion. He heard the words ‘Dragon Age books’ and he was pretty much sold.”

“Easy,” Anders said with a snort, watching him.

“Pretty much,” Logan agreed cheerfully. “But new players are always exciting, so I wasn’t complaining.” Anders made a face, and Logan’s brow creased. “What’s that look for?”

Anders set his water glass aside with a slight cough at the question.

“Just – I know you like him, but his character seems very Special Snowflake to me.” 

“Oh,” Logan said, chuckling. “Yeah, I know. It’s – it’s pretty bad. But it’s created some interesting roleplays already, and the fact that he’s so pro-Chantry should bring in some great tension when we finally get to the whole Chantry explosion thing. If he’s still around. You gotta love the angsty plots.”

“That’s nefarious of you, Hawke,” Anders said, finding he liked the idea of Arn and Vael being on opposite sides of the inevitable conflict very much. They were at least a couple of years out from that, since the Apostate set off the explosion in 9:37 Dragon and their in-game timeline put them about 9:34. Time proceeded at about the same pace in game as it did in real life. But still. Anders had been playing Arn for three years already and he definitely had no intention of stopping in the conceivable future.

“Yep,” Logan said, smug. “And anyways, he’s a pretty good roleplayer already, and I think the rest will get better once he’s been around for a bit and moved past the whole, er, dead family, thing.”

Anders nodded, appeased partially by Logan’s thoughts on Sebastian’s background, but still feeling…oddly put out by the whole thing. He looked down at their empty plates.

“You cooked, so I’ll clean up,” he said. “Why don’t you go get your laptop set up and I’ll be in in a minute?”

“Anders, I can help with the clean-up,” Logan objected, getting a tiny furrow between his eyes at the notion of not being allowed to help. 

Which was an entirely normal expression for him and should not have caused such a strong surge of immediate affection, but God, Anders wanted to kiss his ridiculous face.

“I know you _can_ ,” he said instead, getting up. “But it’s my treat.”

“But-”

Anders caved to his baser instincts and kissed Logan’s cheek, a brush of his lips that lingered a little too long to be platonic. Logan went very still.

“Go on, I’ll be right in,” Anders said, stacking their plates and carrying them to the sink.

There was a long pause, and then Logan took in an unsteady breath, his chair scraping against the floor as he stood. Anders listened to him move out of the room and only when he was gone did he brace both hands against the counter and try to figure out what the hell he was doing.

\----------

In the living room, Logan was nestled in the corner of the couch, sitting with his legs thrown over the whole length of the thing, his laptop in his lap. Anders went to the opposite end, where his laptop was plugged in and waiting on the end table.

“All right, shove over, you ridiculously tall couch hog,” Anders said, eying Logan’s feet imperiously.

Logan looked up and peered at him, moving his legs to dangle off the front of the couch instead but not really retracting them.

“Anders…you’re as tall as I am,” he objected.

Anders clambered over him and settled into his own now vacant corner, muttering,

“That is entirely beside the point.”

Logan raised both eyebrows and replaced his feet where they had been, except now they were in Anders’ lap.

“Hey!” Anders said, fumbling the computer he’d just been about to put where Logan’s feet now were. “That is so not going to work, Hawke.”

Logan sank further into his corner – slouched, really – and sniggered.

“Oh my god,” Anders said in exasperation, smacking his own forehead and barely resisting the urge to laugh with him. “You are a child.”

Logan, as if to prove the point, stuck out his tongue.

“Oh, that is…it,” Anders declared, shuffling around until he was facing Logan like a mirror image. He wedged his feet in next to Logan’s hip, on the very edge of the couch, and then shoved Logan’s feet between his side and the back of the couch, pulling his laptop off the armrest into his lap before Logan could move his feet again. He sniffed, giving Logan a look that just _dared_ him to complain about this solution to the couch-hogging problem faced by two grown men who were largely leg. 

Or, well, Anders was largely leg. Logan was all proportional and muscled and broad… Anders cleared his throat. 

Logan was still watching him with amusement.

“Rivaini’s pouting that we’re doing a private roleplay on a Friday night,” Logan said.

Anders made a dismissive noise.

“She’s just going to have to get over it,” he declared. “Arn is keeping you all to himself tonight.”

\----------

Roleplaying with the other person in the same room was a rather more intense experience than usual. Normally it would be Anders alone on his couch, waiting for Logan or whoever was on the other side of the screen to respond, patiently or impatiently depending on the day and the roleplay. But he and Logan – and some of the others, on occasion – had taken to getting together in person, now that they lived in the same city. It was a largely quiet affair, the both of them behind their computer screens, not talking much except to occasionally offer a remark on the roleplay that would have, in usual circumstances, been typed OOCly. There was an intimacy to it too, the way Anders could hear Logan’s fingers moving over his keyboard, faster when the conversation was animated, slowly when he was thinking of how to respond, backspacing a lot sometimes when he didn’t know exactly what Garrett should say.

Their conversation had drifted beyond talk of the mission with Vael and how the desire demon had affected Garrett to something a little more…interesting.

Anders chewed on his bottom lip and looked away from watching Logan type when his fingers stopped moving. Logan’s latest pose appeared on the screen.

> **Garrett** crosses Arn’s clinic toward the other mage. “You look tired. Long day for you too?” He hesitates a moment and then grips Arn’s shoulders with calloused hands, kneading the skin between Arn’s shoulder blades with his thumbs.

Anders tried not to think about the similarity between Garrett’s well-worn hands and Logan’s big brown ones. He typed his next pose.

> **Arnmóður** stiffens slightly under the touch and then sighs and relaxes into Garrett’s hands. “Yes. Bloody templars. They’re everywhere these days. I thought I’d have to make a run for it and leave the clinic for a few hours several times this afternoon to avoid their patrols.”

Logan frowned blackly at his laptop and typed quickly.

> **Garrett** frowns and says, “I’ve told you, you need to find a safer place to keep yourself.” He summons the lowest level of lightning he can manage and sends the sparks down his fingers into Arn’s back, hands moving in slow circles.  
>  **Arnmóður** hisses in surprise and arches away under Garrett’s hands.  
>  **Garrett** stops immediately. “Sorry,” he murmurs, sounding contrite. “Too much?”  
>  **Arnmóður** says, “Ah.” He glances over his shoulder and smirks. “Warn a man before you start threatening to light his paldrons on fire, Garrett. Downright dangerous, that is.”  
>  **Garrett** lets his hands fall to his side and protests, “I wasn’t trying to set your robes on fi-” Then he notices the smirk on Arn’s face and narrows his eyes at him, his own lips twitching upwards.  
>  **Arnmóður** says, “I didn’t say you had to stop.” He tilts his head and glances down Garrett’s body casually before he adds, “I’m just saying you might not want to start something with those clever fingers of yours unless you want me to finish it.”  
>  **Garrett** lifts his brows. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but I like your idea better. A tumble with me would take the tension right out of you.”

Anders snorted aloud.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he’s terrible,” Logan said, laughing and blushing and sinking into the couch all at once.

“I’m really, really tempted to take you up on that, just because I want to see you squirm,” Anders said, grinning wolfishly over his laptop at him. “But I don’t think Arn’s quite ready for that yet.”

Logan nodded, shifting so much that Anders had to lock his legs to keep his feet from being nudged off the couch. Squirming was definitely already happening, and Anders wondered what it would be like to actually play out a sex scene between their characters with Logan in the same room, presuming Arn and Garrett could actually get it together enough for that to happen.

 _Hot_ , his brain supplied helpfully, adding an intensely visceral image of Logan breathing heavily and biting his lip as he typed. Garrett would be utterly without shame, because that was who Garrett was, and Logan’s cheeks would be that deliciously dark shade as he tried not to squirm at playing a character so much more forward than himself…

There was absolutely no scenario in which that would end with a completed roleplay, Anders reflected, because his self-control was just not that good. He ignored the heat coursing through him and focused on his response to Garrett’s flirting in the here and now.

> **Arnmóður’s** mouth opens slightly in surprise and he snickers. “My, Hawke, a side of you I’ve never seen before. How interesting.”  
>  **Garrett** crosses his arms over his chest. His gaze is direct, brown eyes hot. “Haven’t you?”  
>  **Arnmóður** says, “I…” He looks away and swallows. “I should…really finish with these.” He waves a hand at the bandages he’s been washing.  
>  **Garrett** waits a long moment, watching the other mage with a raised brow, before he nods. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Thanks for the talk, Arn.” He turns to collect his staff and go.

Logan chuckled. “Is that a nice way of kicking me out?” he asked as his last pose appeared.

“You know I would never kick you out, sweetheart,” Ander said, distractedly, typing his final response.

> **Arnmóður** watches Garrett go, twisting the towel in his hands, a look of regret visible on his face even before Garrett reaches the door. He mutters something under his breath as soon as the clinic door closes, though whether it’s to himself or his spirit is unclear.

“Justice,” Logan groaned as he read. “I should have known that was what the matter was. Your spirit doesn’t like me.”

“Justice doesn’t… _dislike_ you,” Anders objected. “He just thinks Garrett is a distraction from their goals.”

“Fucker,” Logan muttered crossly. “Garrett would literally do anything for the cause Justice or Arn tells him to.”

“Don’t look at me,” Anders snickered. “I’m not the one you have to convince. He’ll come around eventually. Probably.”

Logan groaned. 

“I do need to go to bed, though,” Anders said apologetically. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, of course.” He made sure their log was saved and closed his laptop, moving to stand.

“I talked to Varric,” Logan said quickly, as if to forestall him.

“O-kay…” Anders said, pausing. 

Logan fidgeted, doing a few things behind his computer screen, then turning his laptop off, putting it on the floor. He shifted in his seat. 

Anders frowned. 

“Logan…” Whatever this was, it was probably what had had Logan on edge all night. Sleep could wait. Anders asked gently, “What is it?”

“Heh, um. If I were to ask you for a ridiculous favor, would you promise not to freak out?” Logan bit his lip and fixed wide blue eyes on Anders’ face, looking more nervous than Anders had seen him in a long time.

“Sweetheart, anything,” Anders said, his chest full. He put a hand on Logan’s calf and squeezed. “You can ask me for anything.”

“Right. Okay. Um.” Logan took a deep breath. “Okay, so this was Varric’s idea and I think he meant it was a joke? But I was thinking about it, and um. It actually sounds okay. I mean, nice. I mean, I think it would help. I…” He gave Anders a beseeching look, but when Anders just waited patiently for him to go on, he exhaled and said, “I’m gonna…I’m gonna come out to my family when I’m home for Christmas and I could really use some moral support from somebody I trust so what I’m asking here is if you wanna be my pretend boyfriend for a few days and come meet my family.”

Anders stared at him, sure he’d misheard, the word _boyfriend_ echoing and echoing and echoing in his head. 

“You want me to do what?” He laughed a little, feeling almost manic.

Logan visibly deflated at the laugh, sinking back against the armrest, his shoulders rounding.

“Yeah, I know, it’s a – it’s a stupid idea. A really, really, really stupid idea. Forget I said anything. Varric was just joking around, and I just spent too long thinking about it and-”

“Logan,” Anders touched his knee to make him stop talking. He didn’t like the way the word ‘stupid’ tripped out of Logan’s mouth. If there was anything Hawke wasn’t, it was stupid. “It’s not stupid. You just surprised me. I didn’t think I heard you right. You really want me to – to, what, act like we’re dating? Go home and meet your family like that?” He tried to understand the reasoning here, when everything inside him was leaping at the chance to be in any way closer to the man in front of him.

Logan shrugged, his cheek going blotchy as he blushed. Which was adorable, of-fucking-course.

“This…isn’t exactly a dance I had to do,” Anders admitted cautiously. “I didn’t have to come out to my parents, they just found out, and it’s not like I had any real family afterwards…” _Except Karl_ , he thought, but with Karl it had been easy, the way they’d looked at each other, touched each other, _wanted_ each other, from the beginning. “But the whole point, Logan, of coming out, is to be…your true, authentic self. No more lying or hiding. I don’t know that starting that off with another lie would…be quite helpful, there.”

Logan looked more embarrassed.

“When you put it like that, it sounds even more stupid,” he mumbled, looking down at his lap. Anders was on the verge of protesting that particular word again when Logan added, “Mostly I just – it was just an excuse to have you there with me, so I’m not alone when I tell them. To have somebody in my corner, you know?” He hugged himself and repeated, “Forget it.”

And that… there was no way in hell Anders was going to be able to argue with that. His family didn’t have to know anything about Logan’s life if Logan didn’t want them to, but if he wanted this, and if he wanted someone there for him, then by god, there was no way Anders was letting him do this alone.

“Okay,” Anders said quietly. Seeing Logan – kind, good, brave Logan - looking so unhappy was almost physically painful, and there was nothing Anders would not do to take that look on his face away. Nothing. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Logan nodded miserably at the first okay, but he looked up sharply when Anders spoke again. “You will?” he asked, breathless, hopeful, confused.

Anders touched Logan’s knee again.

“If this is what you need to come out, I will be the best boyfriend you will ever have,” Anders said seriously, and when a broad smile split across Logan’s face, he held up a hand. “I just have one condition.”

Logan nodded eagerly, though his face did fall a bit. 

“Okay.”

“If your family starts being assholes about this, we’re leaving. I don’t care how early in the visit it is, or how guilty you feel about bailing, I’m taking you home. You don’t have to deal with that shit, and if I’m there, _I won’t let them_ treat you like that.”

Logan looked down at his lap again, biting his bottom lip. They both knew that if it came down to it, Logan would put his family first and suffer an entirely miserable holiday in silence. But if Anders was Logan’s boyfriend, even for a day, even for a few days, he was going to be the kind of boyfriend that put _Logan_ over anyone else, the kind of boyfriend that he wanted to be for real, even if this was not. 

Logan took such good care of so many people. Anders wanted, just once, to do the same for him.

“Okay,” Logan agreed. “That – sounds perfect, actually.”

“Okay,” Anders said. He took a deep breath. “So what shifts do I need to get covered down at the clinic?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions? Thoughts about how I could be explaining this all better? Feel free to say so in the comments!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update!!! I know it's been almost two years, but I actually didn't forget about this story! Logan and Anders have a soft spot in my heart, in any universe. I have a lot more written than I remembered, so I'm hoping to actually finish this story this holiday season. Stay tuned for such goodies as:
> 
> -Logan and Anders sharing a bed  
> -what's the deal with Logan's ex, Rowan, and what happened to Karl in this 'verse, anyways? (a past character death and a grief/morning tag have both been added because of Karl, in case anyone needs those warnings)  
> -Hawke sibling bonding times (also Anders and Bethany being buds)  
> -idk more domestic Hawke cooking things, I guess  
> -and, ofc, more mutual pining (meh heh heh)

Anders had no difficulty securing two days bookending the days he already had off for Christmas. He was the primary physician at Kirkwall Community Health Clinic (and the only doctor employed full-time) and he almost never requested time off. In fact Lirene, the clinic’s Executive Director and Anders’ boss, had given him a look of blatant glee at the request and then taken him to lunch and grilled him for the entire hour about this ‘friend’ he was going home with over the holidays.

It should have been a short conversation, because Lirene knew Logan rather well, both as Anders’ friend and as a regular donor to the clinic. But she managed to finagle the details of his and Logan’s arrangement for this four day weekend out of him and then spent the rest of their lunch speculating that being asked to pretend to be Logan’s boyfriend was quite obviously a sign of how taken Logan was with him. 

Anders had his doubts. He’d spent too long pushing Logan away to fool himself that Logan might still harbor those kinds of feelings about him. 

Still, something of Anders’ heart-stoppingly intense reaction to the domesticity of Logan’s most recent home invasion must have shown on his face as he’d told the tale, because Lirene had given him a look of intense sympathy and taken his hand and said, very gently,

“Oh, Anders...” 

After that, Anders had found himself, rather to his surprise, spilling the entire mess of his tangled feelings over a glass of wine Lirene ordered for him, and then being cooed over and sent home early.

It was discomfiting, if not entirely unwelcome. He couldn’t remember being so homesick over a person since his and Karl’s forced separation after Karl had aged out of foster care. He had been a _teenager_ then, for the Maker's sake, and yet contemplating how empty his apartment was when Logan wasn’t there made him maudlin, both in his partially inebriated state and out of it. That afternoon he had thought about how this apartment had never had Karl’s touch to brighten it, how the bed he had now had never had Karl in it, and then cried until he wasn’t sure whether he missed Karl or Logan more.

But December 23 arrived, the day they were set to leave, and Logan pulled up in his battered baby blue F-250 at 10:01 am, precisely one minute after he had said he would be there, and this entire thing was really happening. 

His truck was the kind with hand-crank windows and a cassette tape player, and with his giant dog in the backseat, it was easy to see the kind of wholesome farmboy that Logan had grown up as. 

…Particularly when said overgrown farmboy hopped out to not only take Anders’ bag from him and load it onto the floor in the back with his own, but also _open_ Anders’ damn door for him. 

At the look on Anders’ face, Logan ducked his head, the small grin he’d greeted him with fading, and said apologetically, “Sorry. Force of habit.”

Anders flapped his hand at him.

“Do I look bothered? I’m definitely not bothered. Chivalry not being dead, and all that. You give a man hope, Logan.” He batted his eyelashes at Logan playfully, and had to resist the urge to press his hand to Logan’s well-muscled chest to steady himself as he climbed onto the worn passenger seat.

Logan snorted. “You’re welcome, darlin’,” he drawled, closing the door and coming around to the driver’s side again, and suddenly all Anders could think was, _Oh_. 

Oh, this was a _very_ bad idea. Because it was entirely probable Logan was going to keep calling him pet names like that over the course of this trip, and Anders definitely had not taken into account what Logan’s sinfully delicious voice calling him ‘darlin’ might do to him. Oh, _shit_.

Logan slid in behind the wheel and slipped a tape into the player, because of course he still had those, and Styx’s ‘Renegade’ filled the speakers. Loudly. With an apologetic flick of his eyes, Logan turned the stereo down, and just like that, they were on the road.

There had been some snowfall the night before, and Logan kept his attention on the road until they reached the highway where the roads were bare and wet, all the snow plowed to either side. 

“You okay?” Logan asked then, because neither of them had said anything. Before Anders could answer, he continued, “I know…this whole thing is really weird. I’m still surprised you said yes, to be completely honest.”

“I have done weirder things in my day then pretending to a friend’s boyfriend, sweetheart, trust me,” Anders said, chuckling quietly. He toed off his snow boots and tucked one leg under the other on his seat, turning slightly so he could watch Logan drive. 

Logan pushed his lips to the side and glanced at him.

“You know you could…you could still say no, if you don’t want to do this. I will turn right back around and take you home.”

“If you want me there, then I want to be there. All right?” Anders said, perhaps too quickly, because what he wanted, and badly, was to be whatever Logan needed him to be.

Logan exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders. 

“Thank you,” he said, smiling to himself.

Anders smiled back, his stomach flip-flopping at that soft expression on Logan’s face. Though, to be fair, the fact he was no longer watching the road might have contributed to the sensation.

“I guess we should maybe get our story straight, though?” Anders asked. “We’ll need a few details besides just the fact that we’re dating.”

“Yeah,” Logan said. He tapped the steering wheel and chewed on his lip for a few moments before venturing, “I…thought about it a bit. The way I see it, we’ve got two options. We can say we’ve been dating for a long time – I thought, maybe, you remember that party at Isabela’s like six months after we met? The first time all of us got together? Maybe we could have had our first kiss then?” He didn’t look at Anders as he suggested this, and paused to pass a minivan before he continued. “Or, since…I didn’t tell my mom you were coming with me, we could also say that we just started dating like, in the last couple of weeks. Which would make it _slightly_ less like I lied to her last time we talked, if this is a new development. Excluding the whole gay thing, I mean.” Logan cleared his throat.

Anders remembered that party extremely well, and there was no doubt in his mind that Logan _would_ have kissed him that night, had Anders not been deliberately stand-offish. He had followed Anders around most of the night with what could only be described as puppy eyes, and Anders remembered finding it endearing despite his determination not to drag the younger man into his shit. Now, thinking about how easily this pretend relationship could have been real all this time was just painful.

“The benefit to the second idea,” Anders said, “is it will require less lying, and as you are still a terrible liar, Hawke, I think that might be best.”

Logan scrunched up his nose and took his eyes off the road long enough to stick out his tongue.

“I, at least, can manage a poker face, unlike _some_ people,” he said with superiority.

“Oho, a low blow,” Anders snorted.

“That rhymed,” Logan pointed out.

“Shut it, you,” Anders said fondly.

Logan chuckled and Anders drank up the sight with greedy eyes. He thought, absurdly, _I will die a happy man if I just get to see his smile every day for the rest of my life_. 

“We could tell them it’s been a long time coming, but we only just now got together,” Anders said quietly. “Because I still needed time, after Karl.” 

It would be an effortless story to pull off, because it was almost completely true. The only difference between the lie and the truth was the fact that this relationship they had now wasn’t actually real. Everything else – the wanting, the hesitating – Lirene had seen through him so easily that Anders knew he could sell the truth to Logan’s family, poker face or no.

“You’re okay with that?” Logan asked, sobering at the mention of Karl. Anders nodded and met Logan’s eyes, marveled at the warmth, the gentleness, there. “All right.” Logan nodded too as he turned to the road. “Let’s say we made it official the day I asked you to come home with me, then.”

\----------

It was a four hour drive from Kirkwall to Lothering, but with the particulars of what they were going to say to Logan’s family out of the way, the rest of the road trip was relaxed. It began to feel like they were on their way to vacation, not just on their way to a potentially disastrous family reunion. They speculated on how wasted Rivaini would get at their planned Satinalia celebration in-game next week, and Logan told stories about his family’s Christmas traditions growing up. They were good memories for him, for the most part, but Anders couldn’t remember anything so happy from the holidays he’d had as a kid. He offered stories about the Christmases he and Karl had shared instead – their first Christmas back together, how they’d been too broke to afford anything more than a few fruits and candies and silly little gifts in their stockings, and how they’d strung all the Christmas cards Karl’s students gave him up on the walls every year after he became a teacher. 

“That might be…the most I’ve heard you talk about him,” Logan said, when Anders fell quiet again.

“Does it bother you?” Anders asked, and then realized what a stupid question that was, as if they were actually dating instead of just pretending to be and Logan might not want to hear about the relationship he’d had before.

“No, of course not,” Logan said. “You loved him. He was important to you. Of course I want to hear about him.”

Anders considered this, cupping the eggnog chai he’d ordered at a coffee stand in the last town between both his hands.

“It was hard to talk about him for a long time,” Anders admitted, looking out the window at the snow-covered fields passing by. “He was…everything to me, for….most of my life. It was Karl and I against the world. When he was gone, I – I didn’t know how to cope with that.”

Logan was quiet for about a mile before he said, “I wish I could have met him.”

Anders turned towards him, smiling wistfully.

“Maker, he would have liked you. You’re a lot alike, you know.”

Logan raised an eyebrow and glanced at him.

“It’s true. The way you always look for the good in people. You have such patience for everyone around you, even when they treat you poorly. ‘Well, maybe they’re just having a bad day. We don’t know where they’re coming from.’ Karl used to say that kind of thing whenever we’d get a checker at the grocery store who was rude enough that I started to assume they were being homophobic, or someone would cut us off in traffic, or something like. Even after spending all day dealing with unruly students at work, he was still so very kind to everyone. I was such a hothead then – I would just get angry, but never Karl. He made me better, just by being around him. Or, want to be better, anyways. Like you.” Anders looked down at the cup in his hands. “I think you would have been friends.”

“I would have liked that,” Logan said, his voice quiet.

The conversation faded, but Anders could imagine it now, imagine the two men he had loved in his life meeting and being friends, and it made that piece inside him that was never very far from thinking about Karl, even after all this time, ache.

\----------

The Hawke farm was not in Lothering itself, but rather a twenty minute drive outside it, following the highway up the hill north of town and then turning down a long, winding dirt road past several other farmhouses. 

They sat in the truck for a few minutes after they pulled up. The house itself was an old craftsman, set down a long gravel drive from the road, and surrounded by several outbuildings – an old red barn, a large shop, a double car garage. The fields sloped away from the buildings in every direction, covered in snow now, and there was a paddock containing one blanketed brown horse between the barn and the shop.

It was a lot of property, but it wasn’t separated from the neighbors by any fences as far as Anders could tell, and there was an honest, hard-working feel to the place, with its clutter of trucks and tools around the buildings, that lined up pretty exactly to his expectations.

In the backseat, Maelstrom whined restlessly.

“Logan, hon?” Anders turned to him to find Logan’s hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the house in trepidation. Anders unbuckled his seatbelt and slid across the bench seat to wrap his arms around Logan’s middle.

Logan startled, and then offered a soft laugh.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s going to be okay,” Anders said. “You can do this. They love you, and they’re going to continue to love you, or I will fight them.”

Logan’s lips curved.

“You might rethink that when you meet Carver,” he warned. “And my dad.”

“Oh Maker,” Anders groaned, pulling back to give Logan’s broad frame a once-over. “Do you come from a family of well-fit giants? I should have known.”

Logan smirked at him.

“I thought you’d inferred that already, given we _are_ a family of farmers.”

Anders whimpered and buried his face in Logan’s shoulder.

“Great,” Anders said, his voice muffled against Logan’s shirt. “New plan: if this goes badly, we run like hell. I’m quite good at running, you know.”

“I know, Anders,” Logan said, his voice going soft. Anders lifted up his head to gauge Logan’s expression, and, sure enough, his blue eyes had the pensive, hurt-puppy look he got whenever he was reminded that his friends had been hurt and he couldn’t always fix it. Anders sighed, and hugged the gentle-hearted giant again.

Maelstrom whined, getting up to stick his face over the back of the front seat and subsequently poking his wet nose right in Anders’ cheek. Logan laughed as Anders swiped at his face with a disgruntled expression.

“You want out boy? Huh?” Logan asked.

The rhythmic thumping of Maelstrom’s tail against the door of the cab was answer enough.

“Okay,” Logan said. He took a deep breath. “You ready for this?”

“Ready when you are,” Anders promised.

They spilled themselves out of the truck, Logan taking up both his own backpack and Anders’ suitcase. Maelstrom jumped down from the cab as soon as the door was opened for him, running off around the side of the house, though he reappeared a moment later tailed by a golden lab.

“Hey Sadie,” Logan said fondly, squatting down to scratch along the lab’s back in a way that set her tail wagging fiercely. When she seemed satisfied with the attention, Logan straightened and climbed the three steps to the front porch to try the doorknob. It was unlocked, which Logan seemed to expect. He held the door open for both Anders and the dogs.

They stepped into a living room, carpeted except for the square of linoleum around the front door. The inside of the Hawkes’ farmhouse was warm, and smelled strongly of pine and baked bread, the source of the former being immediately obvious as the eight-foot-tall Christmas tree in one corner. Anders quickly discerned, from the myriad boots abandoned just inside the door and the way Logan dropped their bags to brace himself on the wall and tug off his own, that they were intended to remove their shoes here.

“We’re here,” Logan called into the house as he moved into the front room in just his thick wool socks.

“Logan!” a young woman’s voice squealed, and a teenager with Logan’s warm brown skin and a bob of springy black curls ran into the room from an adjoining hall and threw herself into his arms.

“Bethy!” Logan caught her up in a bear hug, which had the effect of lifting her feet an entire foot off the floor.

“Oof, put me down you big brute,” she laughed, smacking him on the shoulder. Logan obliged, and she gave him a one-armed hug. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks sis,” Logan said, smiling and ruffling her hair. She leaned around Logan to give Anders a friendly stare, and Logan quickly added, “Ah, this is Anders. Anders, Bethany.”

“Hi,” Anders said, resisting the urge to stick his hands in his pockets.

“Hi!” Bethany said brightly. She turned around and hollered down the hallway, “Mom, Dad! Logan’s home!” Then she dropped onto the floor beside the dogs. “Hi Maelstrom! Who’s a good boy? Did you miss me?” The big gray mutt flopped immediately into her lap, and Bethany almost disappeared from view completely.

Anders met Logan’s gaze. “I see the familial resemblance,” he said wryly, as more cooing noises could be heard and Maelstrom’s tail thumped happily against the floor.

Logan grinned at him.

“Glad you boys could make it,” a man’s voice said.

Anders turned to see Logan’s parents emerging into the room. 

Malcolm Hawke was a big man, of a height with his son, though less broad about the shoulders these days. Logan had said he’d filled out again from all the weight he’d lost when he was sick, but looking at him, Anders didn’t think it was likely Malcolm was back to the way he’d been before the cancer. Malcolm’s skin was a cool black, darker than that of his children, and he had a pouf of grey-and-black hair secured away from his face into a bun. Walking in just behind him, Leandra was a study in contrast. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, with pale white skin dotted in freckles and wavy red hair. Her eyes were familiar, almost identical to Logan’s except that they were more blue-grey than blue.

Logan was, Anders reflected as he watched the three of them exchange hugs, a near-perfect amalgamation of his parents. He felt eyes on the back of his neck and glanced over his shoulder to find Bethany watching him thoughtfully. She grinned when she noticed he’d caught her, not ashamed at all, and managed to extricate herself from Maelstrom enough to stand up. 

“So you’re Anders,” Leandra said, approaching him. “So nice to meet another of Logan’s friends. Welcome to our home, dear. We’re glad you could come.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Anders said.

“Oh, please, call me Leandra. Ma’am makes me feel so _old_ ,” she said, laughing, though Anders had a feeling she was perfectly serious.

“Leandra,” he corrected, smiling down at her a little awkwardly.

Malcolm reached out to shake Anders’ hand, his grip strong and palm rough.

“Good to meet you, son,” Malcolm said. 

Anders echoed the sentiment, and there was a momentary lull in the conversation.

“Now,” Leandra said, breaking the silence and taking Malcolm’s hand. “I hate to say hello and run, but Malcolm and I were just about to go into town to finish the rest of our Christmas shopping. We thought we’d get it out of the way before you two got here, but I got a bit of a late start, and–” She narrowed her eyes at Logan, who was smirking. “Don’t you dare say anything, Logan Hawke,” she scolded, and Logan snickered.

“I would never,” he said, faking indignance, and both Bethany and Malcolm laughed.

“Well,” Leandra huffed. “Yes, yes, I was late as usual, but now we’re going. I don’t think we’ll be more than a few hours, so please make yourselves at home.” She was looking at Anders; he had the feeling that last comment was aimed mostly at him.

Leandra and Malcolm walked over to the entry closet by the front door and Malcolm helped Leandra into her coat before shrugging on his own.

“Oh, I almost forgot – Logan, will you keep an eye on the bread I’ve got in the oven? It should be done in about an hour.”

“Sure, Mom,” Logan said.

And with that, the Hawke parents were out the door.

Logan looked over at Anders after a momentary silence and shrugged. Anders shrugged back at him.

“Wellll…” Logan said. “Here we are, then. Where is Carver anyway, Bethany?”

“Out with some friends. He’ll be back by dinner time, I think,” she said, from where she’d already nestled into the corner of the couch closest to the Christmas tree. She spread a flannel blanket over her lap and picked up a book from the end table, but didn’t open it.

“All right. I guess we’ll go put our stuff away. Anders, you want a tour while we’re at it?”

“Sure, hon,” Anders agreed. 

Logan smiled warmly at him.

“Okay,” Logan said again. He scooped up their bags from by the front door and led the way from the room. 

Anders was pretty sure Bethany was watching them again as he followed.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr as [thecryoftheseagulls](thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com), where I do a lot of crying about Hawke and Anders, just generally.


End file.
